While rapid residential and commercial development is certainly an aspect of why the Nose Creek watershed is in poor health, there are other human impacts that can also be challenging for the regional waterway’s overall health.
Secondary contamination from agriculture is also having an impact on the creek's water quality – particularly with the high levels of nitrogen, phosphorous and fecal coliform bacteria that enter it.
The 2018 Nose Creek Watershed Management Plan notes the problem.
“From 2009 to 2013, the main water quality challenges were high phosphorus, salt, and total suspended solids concentrations, and high fecal coliform bacteria counts,” the report reads. “Phosphorus continues to exceed the water quality objectives, and dissolved oxygen occasionally reaches acute and chronic levels for aquatic life.”
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report on similar problems south of the border released in June of this year, “high concentrations of phosphorus may result from poor agricultural practices, run-off from urban areas and lawns, leaking septic systems or discharges from sewage treatment plants.”
Nitrogen-rich fertilizer in agriculture is often the source of high nitrogen levels in rivers, the EPA states in the same report, alongside, “wastewater, animal wastes, and atmospheric deposition.”
High levels of fecal coliform bacteria, the report adds, commonly arise from cattle operations operating near rivers as well as wastewater treatment systems discharging into rivers.
Andrew Yule of Save Nose Creek, a community advocacy organization based in Calgary, hopes to galvanize greater efforts from local municipalities to take action on the pressing problems facing the creek’s ailing watershed.
He said high levels of contamination found in Nose Creek are nothing new, noting that according to the 2018 Nose Creek Watershed Management Plan, the waterway is still listed as 53 per cent unhealthy and only five per cent healthy.
“When Rod Sykes was mayor of Calgary (1969-1977) he called Nose Creek basically an ‘open sewer,’” Yule said. “That was back when Airdrie would empty its effluents into Nose Creek, and I believe Crossfield still does put their treated effluents into the creek.”
Fortunately since then, Yule noted, there have been efforts to get the creek to a point where it is only rated 53 per cent unhealthy. But he said that’s not great, and there’s still a long way to go given Nose Creek is still rated as only five per cent healthy.
“That five per cent healthy [status] has been a long trip, but there has been efforts to make this happen,” he said. "But if we are really serious about protecting the creek, we need to put more protections in place.”
Rocky View County agricultural services officer Matthew Chilakos, who is also the County’s representative on the Nose Creek Watershed Partnership board, acknowledged the impact that agriculture has historically had on the water quality of Nose Creek, but he also noted the County is making strides to do better.
“We ensure that all development[s] proposed within the catchment area of Nose Creek watershed follow the plan and the latest guidelines of the (2018) watershed management plan,” he said. “These include targets and guidelines defined for release rates, volume and water quality.”
These types of guidelines will help the County do its part, alongside all the other Nose Creek watershed partners, Chilakos said, to help reduce concentration levels of phosphorus and nitrogen.
The County also installed new sondes, (water quality monitors) in key areas to monitor those contamination levels throughout most of the year, according to Chilakos.
“We are taking samples on a monthly basis while there is water in the creek just to make sure we have a good understanding of what is going on in the creek, and if there are any spikes of phosphorus, nitrogen and coliform bacteria,” he said.
Chilakos did acknowledge the problem of high fecal coliform bacteria levels is a trickier one, as the province doesn’t have laws preventing cattle from accessing streams.
He did not know if the County had any plans to introduce a local bylaw on this issue. But he felt with the advanced monitoring sondes now installed, the County, (alongside other local partner communities), would gain valuable data to understand what other measures it might take to improve the creek’s overall health going forward.
“We do have a good plan to move forward with data collection, and to understand how development could negatively impact the watershed, and different mitigation measures that all of our jurisdictions can kind of agree upon,” he said. “And we can all go forward together.”
The Town of Crossfield’s water and wastewater operations foreman Joe Holstein confirmed that his municipality still discharges treated effluent into Nose Creek for about 21 days per year, in accordance with Alberta Environment regulations. While legally entitled to make these discharges due to its infrastructure limitations in the face of development pressures, Holstein said the Town has taken additional steps of its own will to lessen its impact.
“To lower the amount we are putting in, we are now currently irrigating our golf course (with treated water) and next year, we will be irrigating some farmland,” he said. “So there will be less of a discharge volume.
“We are (also) increasing our wastewater treatment system by installing an aeration system at the back of the pond. So that will help produce even cleaner effluent.”
In 2019 and 2020, the Town of Crossfield piloted a wastewater filtration technology offered by Calgary company Swirltex on the municipality's lagoons. Crossfield’s local golf course – Collicutt Siding Golf Course – used the company’s treated effluent for its irrigation purposes.
But the Town opted not to continue with the wastewater treatment system permanently.
Holstein, who is Crossfield’s representative to the Nose Creek Watershed Partnership board, said the Town is still committed to doing its part to reduce the environmental impact on Nose Creek.
“Our big hope is to release some cleaner water into Nose Creek, and reducing the amount we are putting into Nose Creek,” he explained. “We’ve got people that do care. We are looking at ways to improve things. We (in Crossfield) want to do the best we can for what we are releasing into Nose Creek.”
